May 22, 1998 For complete coverage of the CWS, check out FANSonly's Spring Championships OKLAHOMA CITY -- The fourth-ranked Washington softball team ran into a roadblock at the College World Series on Friday, falling to No. 1 Arizona 8-0 in five innings in the quarterfinals. Tomorrow at 8:30 p.m. CT, UW (50-14) will meet the winner of tomorrow afternoons game between Texas and Nebraska for the chance to advance to the semifinals on Sunday.
Husky coach Teresa Wilson used each of her three pitchers twice each during the game in an effort to keep the Arizona batters off-balance. UW had used strategy to a lesser extent twice before this season with success, defeating Nebraska and No. 18 Minnesota at the NFCA Hall of Fame Classic.
Sophomore Jamie Graves (18-7) began the game, pitched to two-plus Wildcats and thus was saddled with the loss since the first batter scored. Arizona came up big at the plate, collecting 11 hits while striking out only twice. The Wildcats scored one each in the first two frames, two in the third and four more in the fourth to finish off the Huskies.
Washington, meanwhile, could get nothing going offensively. Graves registered the only Husky hit, singling in the third to move a walked Jennifer Spediacci to second. Freshman Christie Rosenblad then moved both up on a sacrifice bunt, but two more straight outs ended the inning.
"We try to avoid days like today," Wilson said. "We didn't do much today. We didn't pitch the way we can or hit the way we can or play defense the way we can. That's our side of it. You have to credit Arizona with a nice job. They are a very, very good hitting team and then when they also get bloopers to fall, they are very dangerous."
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